Professor Maggie Cusack:

I thank the Deputy for her comments on inequity. The point on inequity is something we all agree on. Everyone is putting multiple provisions in place to attempt to address this and help our students in respect of the rent-a-room scheme. As the Deputy said, many students see it as a last resort. It is not ideal. While it will help in some capacity, it is certainly not the answer to the entire issue.

Professor Cunnane mentioned the case of the 18 students, which is appalling. The point I want to emphasise is that this is systemic; it is not one university or region. Sometimes we talk about individual examples but when we remove that thinking we see the problem is absolutely systemic. We are doing everything we can. Transport has been mentioned. We heard the comment about MTU. One of the campuses, that at Bishopstown in Cork, certainly has huge traffic issues. We are putting in a park-and-ride facility to try to help people to do the right thing, thinking about climate and taking the stress off students. We are trying to address this in multiple ways.